The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1887-09-15
NYE ON THE BOBTAIL.
HIS PLAINTIVE REMARKS ON A
CITY EXCURSION.

CITY EXCURSION.
How Human Nature Shows Itself on
the Street Cars--The New Novel to
BE Called "'The:Flight of the Bobtail
Carr
Bill Nyc IN the Ne1o York World.
How often during the heat of mid
summer we madly rush out of the fry
ing pan of mild prostration and dis
comfort at home into the fire of long
railroad trips, flies, mosquitoes and
expensive clothes. What strange,
restless, unreasonable, evanescent, fly
up-the-creek man is. No other being
that breathes the breath of life can
ever hope to equal him in doing things
which he atterward bitterly regrets,
admitting always, however, that his
wife got him into it. No other anthro-
pid, plantigrade, pachyderm Or mol
lusk can ever hope to compete with
high browed, thinking man in making
a large oval chump of himself and
then coming right out frankly and
admitting that his wife is to blame for
it. No other male mammal when it
pounds its thumb with teck hammer
turns and throws the hammer at the
female of its species.
Why should we buy a ticket over
the Red Hot Valley and Skewgee
railroad and pay extra baggage on
1872 worth of new clothes, when the
Manhattan elevated scenic route, with
kind-hearted and scholarly guides,
ready at any and all times to gather
in few thumbs from the great moist
masses by means OF those cute little
iron gates, stands ready to take us to
and beyond the Harlem ?
On the redirect examination, |
might also ask why we should 60
away fifty miles in order to ride on
make believe horse in the merry 60
ride in the voluptuous bobtail car for
five cents To ride in a bobtail car
is to teach one how small he is and
what an insignificant atom he is on
the face of the earth. He may leave
the pul pit or the forum with the ap-
plause of the multitudes still ringing
in his ears, but when he enters the
bobtail car he sinks his identity and
becomes a plain American citizen
with another American citizen stand
ing on each of his feet.
He need not go away to Saratoga
in order to cover in the presence of a
hotel clerk, who, in his time, has look
ed through and through some of our
most eminent men, but go on about
four blocks down the street. He can
pay five cents to a bobtail car, and in
the presence of a driver and the old
man with a mouth like midnight as
sassination who stands on the rear
platform and smokes a pride Of the
pesthouse cigar, if he cannot cover
enough in twenty minutes TO last him
six weeks he is mighty difficult man
to please.
1t is here, also, that we are thrown
in contact with the corpulent old lady
who tries to put nickle into the con-
tribution box just as the car starts,
but who suddenly changes her mind
and deposits it in the eye of man
who has made bimetalism a study,
but not before at such close range.
The great speciality of the bobtail
car is to keep its temper till you go to
pay your assessment, and then rise up
and belt you across the brains. That
is the reason it is frequently called
the Belt line.
There is no less restraint on a bob
tail car than at fashionable resort.
Yesterday drunken man with feath-
HI Io1
on the back of his neck and an illicit
breath, leaned his weary head on my
breast and with little futtering sigh
like tired child, went to sleep. He
slept from about forty rods below
Spuyten Duyvil to point where the
country line road crosses section six
There 1 woke him up and gently tax
ing his roguish hand out of my pock-
ct, [ leaned him over the other way,
with his head against the shoulder of
an old lady who had rested big pa
per bag of moist and mushy pears on
my knee for two miles, and got off the
car feeling as well pleased in every
way as / would had [ been On "a long,
expensive excursion.
| lutTe lS dlSU IlIc WOHldu WHO Is III
tent ON thinking how she will chisel
some great dry goods emporium out
of twenty-seven cents worth of sam
Piles, and who gets off he car forget
ting her baby, which is asleep on the
seat. She always rides in bobtail
car, and although she frequently
leaves her baby on the seat that way
and always wildly attacks the driver
about it the next day, and very rarely
gets the baby returned to her, she
does not seem to refrain from riding
in the bobtail car, and she never
seems to run short of children
/ Some day I am going to write a
New York society novel ca led "The
Flight of the Bobtail Car" 1t will
be full of thrilling passages and will
contain sparkling New York society
dialogue which will be good to speak
in school. The book will also contain
a graphic description of race be
tween two bobtail cars; also chap
ter detailing an attack on bobtail
car at Desbrosses street, in which the
driver is forced to defend the cal
against band of road agents, attend
to his horse keep his eye on the cash